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50 Comments

37 subreddits to market your startup

I'm not able to link to any of these, but I hope this helps you add more marketing channels to test.

Marketing / Sales

  • /r/Marketing
  • /r/AskMarketing
  • /r/SocialMedia
  • /r/CopyWriting
  • /r/Advertising
  • /r/WebMarketing
  • /r/EmailMarketing
  • /r/Sales
  • /r/Plugyourproduct
  • /r/coupons/

Growth

  • /r/GrowMyBusiness
  • /r/GrowthHacking
  • /r/alphaandbetausers/
  • /r/growmybusiness
  • /r/indiebiz
  • /r/startup/
  • /r/roastmystartup
  • /r/sweatystartup/

SMBs

  • /r/SmallBusiness
  • /r/Entrepreneur
  • /r/Startups
  • /r/advancedentrepreneur
  • /r/indiebiz
  • /r/LadyBusiness
  • /r/HWStartups
  • /r/thesidehustle/
  • /r/startups_promotion/
  • /r/smallbusiness
  • /r/startups
  • /r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/
  • /r/entrepreneur
  • /r/MadeThis/
  • /r/advancedentrepreneur/

VC + Crowdfunding

  • /r/VentureCapital
  • /r/VenturedCapital
  • /r/Crowdfunding
  • /r/Kickstarter
  1. 9

    Nice list! I'd add:
    /r/indiehackers
    /r/sideproject

    And a few obvious and maybe not so obvious pointers for marketing on reddit:

    1. Be a redditor first and gain karma (a fast way is to make valuable comments on popular posts) before attempting anything that remotely resembles promotion.
    2. Don't upvote your own posts with fake accounts. Admins are quick to give anyone the boot who looks like they're up to something fishy.
    3. Posts with downvotes can bring your karma down so consider deleting them.
    1. 1

      What is a decent amount of karma on reddit?

      1. 3

        This is a tricky question. I'm almost hesitant to share these numbers because I don't want to discourage anyone. But here goes.

        I believe the average karma score on reddit is around 1,000. (I remember that seeming like a lot to me when I first started.) Once you're between 2,000 and 5,000 you're much safer from mods looking for suspicious behavior. The top 1,000 commenters on Reddit have a minimum karma score of 17,300. And, there are several accounts in the millions!

  2. 6

    Just to be precise, they are more subreddits to get help and feedback than threads to market your startup. Market your startup to your market, not to other startuppers.

    1. 1

      Precisely. Just to add, a lot of those groups are very sensitive to marketing your stuff and will delete the post or worst, you. It's always advise to play by their rules or you could lose them as a resource.

  3. 4

    Nothing wrong with the advice, but most subreddits have a no self-promotion policy (and Reddit has a "no promotion over 10% of account activity" policy). There are things like self-promotion threads but it's only visited by people looking to promote their products and not by other people. Users who don't cease the promotion on being warned will have a very real possibility of having their account and domain banned from the sub.

    don't spam or self-promote if it's not permitted! However, you can create some valuable content for the subreddit and share a link to your blog. Most Subs are ok with that (if you really bring value) and it can drive you some serious traffic.

    1. 3

      Very good point.

      In fact, the very first one on the list, /r/marketing, is not for promoting product directly:

      For marketing communications + advertising industry professionals to discuss and ask questions related to marketing strategy, media planning, digital, social, search, campaigns, data science, email, user experience, content, copywriting, segmentation, attribution, data visualization, testing, optimization, and martech. Get advice, ask questions, or discuss any marketing-related topics. Our diverse /r/marketing community includes brands, businesses, agencies, vendors, and students.

      And their rules send you to reddit.com/advertising if you want to promote something--in other words, if you want to advertise, they say you should be paying for advertising.

      /r/sales is similar: "This is not the place to promote your business in any form. Any and every post promoting a business, in any capacity, will be removed and will result in an instant, permanent ban. This includes self-promotions of your services, contacts, and associations of the like. No Exceptions!"

      So these are not all "subreddits to market your startup," and doing so on most will get you kicked off of Reddit. Take this list with a large grain of salt.

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

  4. 3

    Reddit is so powerful; I found all of my first 100 paid customers on Reddit for sqlpad.

    For folks who don't have time to hang in there all day long, I am launching a tool to send you alerts based on what your product does.

    Feel free to check it out and request an free trial account here: Segue

    See some test results here:
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/tell-me-about-your-product-and-i-will-find-reddit-leads-to-grow-your-business-4f36b312f6

    1. 2

      Totally agree. You can learn soooo much from Reddit about a market, audience persona and as a place for business ideas. Lots of Reddit threads are troves of info to build a business around. Many of the sub reddits mentioned above have very active and supportive groups that will help founders with testing too.

      1. 1

        👍 🤝
        Segue's goal is to make it easier for founders to effectively and organically mention their products on Reddit, when the moment is right.

        Chime in and share your product when the moment is right.

        People don't mind you mentioning your product given the right context. The same post can get you banned or be the most useful thing in another thread. Our machine learning algorithm discovers those moments for you, and no tedious keyword configuration is needed.

        1. 1

          This is such a great idea. So for the first 100 customers you found on Reddit, did you gain traction through a post or were they from contextual replies?

          1. 2

            Thank you. It's a combination of, I shared some of my articles by self-promoting them, also responding to questions and people who need help, and adding value to the conversation while mentioning my product.

            1. 1

              I'll try a similar method. Thanks!

  5. 3

    Great list. Keep in mind it different horses for different courses with each sub

    The subs like /r/Plugyourproduct and /r/Imadethis are good for self promo.

    The larger one like /r/Entrepreneur/ and /r/Startup will eat you alive if they detect the slightest instance of self promo. And the bots will get you quicker that the mods will.

    The tougher the crowd the bigger the sub. But theres a workaround. Most subs have a thread for self promo or vehicles to self promote:

    /r/Entrepreneur/ has Thankyou Thursday to offer discounts

    r/growmybusiness has Monthly Growth Strategy & Advice Thread where you can impart your wisdom and subliminally make readers aware of what you do.

    Just a case of finding the threads (where available) for each one.

  6. 3

    Great! This makes my life much easier. Any suggestions on how to go about gently plugging our products/services?

    1. 3

      Ask and respond to questions in the group and earn up some karma before pitching anything (moderators hate self promotion).

      Gently mention your website if you can help with any specific issue brought up by the group.

      You can also just use the group to find people interested prospects

    2. 1

      We've just started out so we're tiny but you're welcome on r/growthmemes as long as you can fit your self-promo into a meme framework 😉

  7. 2

    I'm very curious how you've gotten around the issue of startup self promotion – most subreddits that I've seen are (rightfully) very defensive about that, even in cases where people are posting generally helpful original content for the community.

  8. 2

    r/InternetIsBeautiful is a good place too. As long as you have something free, fun and cool to contribute.

  9. 2

    This is an excellent list IF your target market is other founders. If that's the case, try to provide value on the most applicable of these subreddits. As others have mentioned, check the rules of each one first. And only mention your product when it's actually applicable.

    If your target market isn't one of these, then don't bother with them (marketing-wise). Go where your customers are.

    The trick to reddit is to really, truly provide value. If you do that, people will forgive the occasional (tasteful) plug.

  10. 1

    Thank you for sharing the list!

  11. 1

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  12. 1

    Thanks for sharing the list!

    I've also put some more links and ideas that might be useful for the launch in the trekhleb/promote-your-next-startup repo.

    Normally whenever I launch something or see some nice ideas for spreading the word about the startups/projects (like your post, for example) I try to update that list. So, hopefully, it might be useful to the audience here as well.

  13. 1

    Thanks for this, I'll use these subreddits to bring early users to Jem which is a social app for Creators to connect with other Creators.

    jemsocialapp.carrd.co

  14. 1

    we need a list for sharing blog articles without getting banned

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  16. 1

    Honestly, please don't do this. Most of these communities are at a scale worth linking here because other people generously contributed meaningful content to grow them.

    When you generically try to "market your startup" there, it just lowers the quality of the community and creates more work for the volunteer moderators to clean up your spam.

    Put the work in to identify your target audience, and think of a way to share valuable content or spur meaningful discussion. Don't just lazily spam subreddits that aren't even related to what you're selling. It's a waste of time, and harmful to other people's generous efforts.

  17. 1

    Great subreddit suggestions! I used many of these to help spread the word about my Reddit post scheduler SaaS Postpone in the early days.

    It would be worth checking out for anyone looking to schedule posts to these subreddits. It has a free tier with 10 posts per month, which should be plenty for something like this!

  18. 1

    This is a great amount of resource and thank you very much

  19. 1

    Very nice list! Do you guys have some subreddit to market about tech-related startups?

  20. 1

    This is gold! For sure will use it for our beta launch. Thank you @clayatconfluence

  21. 1

    thanks for the list fellow human :)

  22. 1

    Thanks for this
    I was really planning for some marketing on Reddit

  23. 1

    That's a great share. I'll check these out!

  24. 1

    I just shared my botostrapper's guide on /entrepreneur and got some nice feedback

  25. 1

    Very Informative Startups !!

  26. 1

    Good list! I have been scouring through Reddit as well, I'll have a look if I have any to add here 👍

  27. 1

    Thanks for these subreddits. Most of them are marketing, but reddit really doesn't like advertising and the moderators send it to spam. Or is it possible to post information about your product in such subreddits?

  28. 1

    Thanks for sharing

  29. 1

    Thanks for sharing and perfect timing! This is exactly what I was looking for my new project.

  30. 1

    /r/InternetIsBeautiful is definitely worth a try.

    Got 40,000 unique visitors in 24 hours 🤯

    Might not work for paid products though

    1. 2

      No way. Gonna have to check that one out - thanks!

  31. 1

    Thank you for the list 🙏

  32. 1

    Thank you for sharing that list. Super valuable for everyone who is not too familiar with reddit. I had to look for a long time to find suitable subreddits, that fit my needs.

    A lot of yours I was not aware of.

    Thanks!

  33. -1

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